It was meant to be a celebration. In reality, it turned out to be a tragedy. And yet, things will soon be alright and we will all move on. There is little value for human life in India, and none of the fans who lost their lives will move a mountain. This is the real tragedy. This is the core issue. That we don’t value human lives.
As for our political class, a caveat is necessary here. I don’t belong to any particular political party, and that’s well known. So, no Congress or BJP or TMC here, please. The truth is that Indian politicians, except a rare few, care two hoots about grassroot sport. They either don’t have the time, or they don’t think it is important enough. All they care for is the glamour. They need to be part of an RCB victory ceremony, be seen with Virat Kohli and his ilk and share the limelight. That’s the reality, and it’s not going to change any time.
The issue has now turned political, and will soon become a blame game. In all of this, the lives that are lost or the ones who are in hospital injured will soon become the back story. Political toxicity will play out on 9pm television before the next story takes over.
The stampede-like situation happened around 5pm India time. It was around 12:30pm my time here in the UK when I got calls from my two colleagues, Gargi Raut and Bharath Ramaraj, who said to me that they were stuck in a sea of people and it was suffocating. With the Internet hardly working and phone calls not going through, my first job was to ask them to leave immediately.
Coverage did not matter one bit, and I needed them to get to a safe spot. That’s when they first told me that some people had died. There was a certain numbness thereafter. The only fault of the ones who died was that they were RCB fans. That they had come out to support their stars and get a fleeting glimpse of the men who won them a title after 18 seasons. And now, they will never return home. While the families will mourn them forever, the rest of us will all move on with our lives.
The other question that continues to haunt us all is why the celebrations continued despite the stampede. RCB have issued a statement saying they had curtailed things. What they did was cancel the press conference. The victory lap and all else happened in a curtailed ceremony. When sirens were blaring outside the stadium, how and why was this allowed? Who takes responsibility for this insensitivity? While it was meant for fans, some of those very fans lost their lives. Yet, the celebrations went on.
Do human lives really matter, or have we become completely heartless and insensitive? I, for one, will not remember this IPL for anything but this tragedy. It ended in the worst manner possible, and should be a life lesson for us all. In every part of the world, there are victory parades. Mumbai had seen one last year. What happened in Bengaluru is a matter of national shame. And a reminder of how little each one of us matters.
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